travel more. experience more. live more.
I thought it was going to be a one-time post when I wrote about my first day in Vietnam last year. But after thinking it over, I determined it’s a useful column. I don’t have set rules for a first day in a country, but I generally do the same sort of things to get [...] Read more »
Beauty in Italy “Everything in Italy is beautiful…on the surface.” The film presents to us at the start. It’s true. This country exudes beauty: from the Roman frescos preserved in Herculaneum to the natural beauty of the countryside of Tuscany. People on the streets are impeccably dressed as well. There’s no avoiding it. Foreigners fall [...] Read more »
When we grow up in one place, that becomes the norm for which we measure the world. When I was a child, that world was a place of four seasons; a place where people communicated in one language; a place I felt comfortable camping in the forests. Pennsylvania was a four-hour drive away from the [...] Read more »
Trains are too romantic. Buses don’t stop enough. Motorcycles too fast. And forget about planes. But not walking. “Walking reminds us of who we are.” says Paul Theroux in an interview about his new book, The Tao of Travel. We feel the earth beneath our feet while walking. We are one with the weather. We need [...] Read more »
Last week’s Travel Philosophy Friday post It won’t be like I remembered it make me think about place and the way we view that place after our experience there. In other words, place versus our experience in that place. Although spending a cold and rainy three days there, I left Copenhagen, thinking “Man, I love [...] Read more »
In response to last week’s Where’s your old home?, Juno Kim mentioned in the comments that she might be afraid to return to New Zealand because “it would change everything”. I think she was worried that it wouldn’t be the same New Zealand she remembered when and if she returned. That is one important thing [...] Read more »
Nineteenth century scholar Max Mueller said that by going to India, we are returning to our “old home” full of memories, if only we can read them. I believe we all have an old home, not necessarily India, but someplace, some part of the earth where we feel particularly drawn to or some culture that [...] Read more »
By Stephen Bugno If you’re a member of couchsurfing.org, you may already know how awesome it is. For those of you who are not, I just want to stress all the amazing experiences I have had because I’m using it. Traveling for me is an extension of real life—not some holiday I take for two [...] Read more »
By Stephen Bugno “This is just as bad as an all-inclusive resort in Cancun.” I blurt out to myself while hanging from my hammock chair. We are sitting under a thatched-roof hut on the edge of Nicaragua’s Laguna de Apoyo, listening to the surprisingly loud waves crash while the sun goes down behind the [...] Read more »
By Stephen Bugno There have been times when, leading up to a big trip, I have read and researched, printed and photocopied, devoured and digested all available information about the places I was about to visit. I was well versed in the history, cultural norms, and current politics when I arrived and the locals responded [...] Read more »